Finance
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met with numerous foreign ministers gathering here for the General Assembly’s high-level session to strengthen India’s relations with their countries and learn about their worldviews.
He also attended meetings of three organizations: BRICS, the ten-member group of major developing countries; IBSA, the India-Brazil-South Africa group; and a combined conclave of India and CELAC, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
The need to modernize international institutions, as well as trade, was a key priority during these meetings.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, was among the top diplomats Jaishankar met with.
Jaishankar said on X that they had “useful discussion on bilateral ties, the Ukraine conflict and developments in the Middle East”.
With the United Arab Emirates Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, he said they “exchanged perspectives on our bilateral cooperation as we prepare for the Joint Commission”, which is the forum for discussing how to promote the relations between the two countries.
He added that he “valued his insights on contemporary developments”.
Austria’s Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, after their meeting, thanked Jaishankar for “our thoughtful discussion”.
“Strengthening our excellent partnership — both bilaterally with Austria, but also from a European perspective — is clearly in our mutual interest”, she said in her post on X.
He wrote on X that they had a “lively discussion on the geopolitics of the day and the choices before India and Europe”.
Others he met included Foreign Ministers Paul Chet Greene of Antigua and Barbuda, Mario Lubetkin of Uruguay, Sugiono of Indonesia, Timothy Musa Kabba of Sierra Leone, and Toiu Oana of Romania.
At the India-CELAC meeting he co-chaired with Columbia’s Foreign Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio, Jaishankar said on X that they agreed “on the urgent need to reform multilateral institutions to better represent the Voice of the Global South”.
“We agreed to strengthen our existing broad-based cooperation in fields such as agriculture, trade, health, digital, HADR (Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief) and capacity building”, he said.
They also committed to collaborate in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, technology, essential minerals, space, and renewables, he said.
